New York, NY: When my uncle Victor Lee suffered a massive stroke and was admitted to Cornwall Regional Hospital in Montego Bay, Jamaica, I thought the hardest part would be his condition. I was wrong.
What followed was silence.
For weeks, I sent emails asking a simple question: How is he? Those emails were read, forwarded, and then ignored. By the time I finally learned what had happened, my uncle had already died—and most of his family had never been told.
The hospital chose one point of contact and excluded all others—without transparency, process, or notification.
Victor was elderly, incapacitated, and lived alone in Montego Bay. He could not speak or advocate for himself. His wife had already passed. His sisters were elderly, lived overseas and unable to manage his care. He was estranged from his daughter.
I am his niece. For about a year prior to his illness, I had been assisting Victor with his rent and with another important financial matter. When he fell ill, I did what family does: I stepped forward, determined to protect his dignity and ensure that his affairs did not unravel while he lay helpless in a hospital bed.
What followed was not just a failure of law—but a failure of basic humanity.
From early August onward, I sent repeated emails to the hospital and the Western Regional Health Authority asking one simple thing: How is Victor? I explained who I was. I explained our relationship. I explained that I was trying to obtain a court appointment—what Jamaica calls Appointment of Person and Property—so I could lawfully protect him, pay his bills, and ensure his dignity.
Those emails were read. They were forwarded internally. And then—nothing.
No guidance.
No explanation of what documents were required.
No acknowledgment of Victor’s condition.
I was not demanding medical charts or confidential details. I was asking for communication about an incapacitated, elderly man who had no one else actively advocating for him.
Instead, silence.
Behind the scenes, one relative—older, overseas, and not assuming responsibility for Victor’s care—had contacted the hospital. Without any transparent process, without notifying others who had already placed their interest in writing, that single representation was treated as determinative. The rest of us were shut out.
Then came the most devastating moment of all.
Weeks later, when I called yet again, I was told—almost in passing—that Victor had died. No one had notified me. No one had notified any other family member including his granddaughter who resided overseas. By the time the system spoke, it was too late to do anything at all.
Victor’s body was later released and cremated without the knowledge of most of his family.
I sought answers. I filed a formal complaint. I waited months for an investigation. And what I received in return was a “closure” letter that closed nothing—one that recited policy, but did not explain decisions; that referenced documentation submitted after death, but ignored the weeks of silence before it; that failed to account for why no one thought it necessary to tell a family that their loved one had died.
This experience forced me to confront a painful truth: the problem is bigger than one hospital, and bigger than one family. What I experienced is not an isolated failure. It is rooted in the law itself.
Why the Mental Health Act Treats Overseas Family Members as “Dead” – and Why Jamaica Must Change It
Jamaica’s Mental Health Act, treats overseas relatives as if they are legally “dead” for the purposes of guardianship. That provision is archaic, discriminatory, and out of step with modern Jamaica—a country sustained by its diaspora, whose remittances exceed billions each year and whose families remain deeply connected across borders.
Yes, dead. Section 3(4) of the 1999 Act literally says that if you are a nearest relative living abroad, the courts must treat you as if you do not exist.
Diaspora relatives send money, pay mortgages, cover medical expenses, and travel home to care for loved ones. Yet the law excludes them from protecting incapacitated relatives, simply because their residence is overseas.
The consequences are devastating. Elderly and vulnerable Jamaicans may be left without anyone to act on their behalf, while their willing and able relatives abroad are disqualified. Families are torn apart not by distance, but by law.
This provision violates Jamaica’s Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms. It offends the principle of equality before the law (Section 13(3)(g)), undermines the right to family life (Section 13(3)(j)), and denies protection to the vulnerable, whom the Constitution obliges the State to safeguard.
Other countries—Canada, the UK, the US—permit courts to appoint overseas relatives, sometimes with local co-guardians for oversight. Jamaica is stuck in the past, clinging to a law that treats diaspora families as if they were buried in the ground.
Parliament must act now. Section 3(4) of the Mental Health Act should be reformed to recognize that overseas relatives are alive, committed, and capable. The law should allow courts to appoint them as Committees of the Person or Property, with safeguards where necessary.
The diaspora is Jamaica’s extended heartbeat. To treat them as “dead” is not only unjust—it abandons the very people who keep our families alive.
But even beyond the law, my experience reveals a deeper systemic failure: a culture where procedure replaces compassion, where silence is treated as neutrality, and where investigations conclude without accountability.
The law failed Victor.
The system failed his family.
And the investigation failed to reckon with either.
No family should have to beg for information about a hospitalized loved one. No family should learn of a death by accident. And no public authority should consider such an outcome an acceptable “closure.”
Victor Lee deserved dignity. His family deserved answers. And Jamaica deserves laws—and systems—that recognize that family does not end at the airport.
If we do not fix both the law and the culture that administers it, Victor’s story will not be the last. It will simply be the next family’s turn.
